How Dangerous Are Danglers?
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/02/20/how-dangerous-are-danglers/ [www.chronicle.com]
2017-02-22 16:29
The point of taking a critical and questioning approach to prescriptive usage rules is to determine which ones are worth following because they are helpful in creating clearer, less ambiguous, and/or more aesthetically pleasing prose; which ones are worth following at least some of the time because they are shibboleths that may get our writing (and us) judged as not good enough; and which ones are not worth following because they are out of date, not widely held or known, etc. I think the advice about avoiding danglers falls into the first category.